Why Are You My Remedy
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: [Loki/Tony] Iron Man had defeated the Mandarin. Tony Stark had defeated his demons and Pepper Potts had saved herself. So why wasn't he happy? An accidental run in with Loki, free from Asgard, stirs up feelings Tony had thought he'd already beaten down. In the end, he's weak and stupid and careless, but Pepper is forgiving, Loki is accepting and Tony destroys everything he touches.


This took me forever, and it's not quite as IM3 centric as I promised it would be, but I hope you like it anyway. It killed me and I hated it and I'm on my laptop (and I hate the keyboard) so if there are typos I missed them and I'm sorry. But I can't re-read this again tonight. I need sleep!

Enjoy.

"**Why Are You My Remedy**"

**Disclaimer: ** The Avengers, Iron Man, Tony, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don't sue.

**Summary: ** [Loki/Tony] Iron Man had defeated the Mandarin. Tony Stark had defeated his demons and Pepper Potts had saved herself, saved them both. So why wasn't he happy? An accidental run in with Loki, free from Asgard, on parole stirs up feelings Tony had thought he'd already beaten down. In the end, he's weak and stupid and careless, but Pepper is forgiving and Loki is accepting and Tony destroys everything he touches.

**Warnings: ** AU. Tony/Pepper. Loki/Tony. Post-IM3. **IRON MAN 3 SPOILERS**. Mostly just glosses over IM3. Cheating. Angst. Happy enough ending, considering. Sexual references. Emotionally stunted Tony. Broken Tony.

**Rating: ** NC-17.

**A/N**: This is for lightneverfades at Tumblr. The title is from "Clarity", a song by Zedd.

_XXX_

"_You love, love, love, when you know I can't love_." – Of Monsters and Men: Love, Love, Love.

**Words: **4,432

**Chapter 1**

He should have been happier, more content. He had Pepper, safe and sound, and together they had defeated the Mandarin and Killian and all of Tony's demons (or so Pepper had thought). But the truth of it was, Tony missed it: the danger, the suits, the fear and adrenalin. But more than that, he missed the pain, the hurt, because he deserved it, always had, always would, and without it he was lost, just floating along through life with no direction and no sense of purpose. He hadn't earned the right to retire yet, hadn't made up enough for all of the hurts he had caused, and so behind her back Tony built another suit. Then another, and then another.

But the least he could do was pretend to be happy for her sake. He fitted another device beneath the skin of his neck, where skull met throat, and it sent surges of electricity through his nerves whenever Jarvis wanted to wake him from a nightmare; so that his nightmares didn't wake Pepper instead. She slept on, unconcerned and unaware, and Tony went to work, building and destroying and recreating until he passed out on the cot in the workshop. Jarvis would wake him again, when Pepper was stirring, so that he could rush to the kitchen and start breakfast and pretend he had been there all morning instead of in the basement.

They were back in New York now. The work needed on the Tower was less than what would be required to fix his Malibu home, and it was half completed by that point anyway. The Avengers bar Thor were still there too, but since he wasn't one of them any longer (without his suit what did he had to offer them? He was smart, but so was Bruce, and Bruce didn't need a suit to be strong) they mostly just worked around one another, pole magnets needing to be in the same space but pushed apart by forces they couldn't control. Bruce was the only one who still engaged him in conversation, dragging Tony off to the lab or the workshop and keeping silent about the suits that continued to line the walls in their glass cases.

He was up to Mark LXIII (or 63 in layman's terms) when Fury finally called him in. He could have chosen not to go, refused because if Fury had known about the suits this long and said nothing then chances were he'd continue to say nothing, and Pepper would never have found out about Tony's extracurricular hobbies again. But Thor had delivered the invite personally; his first time back in the same space as Tony since they day they sent Loki packing in chains, almost two years to the day.

With Thor's return came the flood of memories Tony had tried so very hard to block out.

Dreams.

Nightmares.

Loki with his head thrown back, mouth red and wet and open as he moaned. Tony pressing down over him, hips thrusting and stuttering, words merely broken sounds filled with need and lust shared between their mouths. Waking, panting, covered in sweat and come, Pepper lying at his side unaware of his mind's betrayal. Hands slipping beneath his pyjama pants, stroking slowly and soft; trying to think of red hair, but focusing on green eyes instead flashing beneath his closed eyelids as he came again. Hard and aching at the thought of Loki on his back for him. Harder still at the thought of Loki taking _him_, weight pushing him down, trapping him, hands on Tony's wrists pinning him, hurting him, and he came at the thought, at the knowledge that he'd deserve it, the pain, the bruises, the fear of being trapped by the God, at his mercy and helpless. Falling through the sky, Loki's finger marks on his throat still; breath catching as he failed to scream and the suit deployed after him. Loki watching, Loki smirking, and Tony trying to ignore the frantic beating of his heart that was from more than just fear.

The fact that it got him off just went to show how fucked up he truly was, how desperate and pathetic and broken he really was. Pepper had barely scratched the surface of his issues: New York had fucked him up beyond all repair and there was no way to fix him, nothing he could do, that didn't involve hurting himself further.

So Tony went when they called.

Iron Man shot over the buildings and through the skies and he defiantly ignored Pepper's incoming calls and Jarvis' casual mention of Pepper's distressed state.

He battled the bad guys.

He fought with Pepper.

But he never tried to take a swing at any of his own demons though. His demons were not compatible with him, not at all, but creativity helped him to escape them, so Tony worked, bent and twisted his ideas to avoid his problems the way his father had before him, with drink and work and stubbornness winning out over his sense of self-preservation.

It was after one particularly bad fight with Pepper that Tony found himself shrugging his way out of a patrol, choosing instead to find the dingiest looking bar he could and drowning his sorrows in whiskey.

"Do you not love me anymore?" She had asked him, brown eyes welling up with tears. Her cheeks had been flushed, her mouth turned down, and Tony had reached out with shaking fingers to brush her lip softly until she smiled, eyes closing at the familiar gesture, taking comfort from it.

"Of course I love you. I gave you everything, Pep, you know that. I gave up everything for you," he had whispered back, sounding harsher than he had intended to.

Her eyes had snapped open, narrowed at him as she scowled. Pepper had pulled away from his touch then, slapping his hand away, though it didn't hurt, and she sighed. She should have sounded angry, but she didn't. Instead, she sounded sad, and Tony hated that he had made her cry again when she told him, "But not for long. Was that all I'm worth to you? Six months? You promised me forever."

He had walked away from her first, fists clenched at his sides, Loki's laugh echoing in his skull and the thrill of battle burning hot in his veins. She had watched him go in silence, Jarvis' voice calling out Fury's latest orders and Tony had suited up obediently uncaring that once upon a time he had used to make Fury wait on _him_. When he arrived and Thor, his partner for the night, met him and shared who exactly they were patrolling for, Tony left.

Loki came to him in his dreams every night, in his nightmares sometimes too. Often, in the shower when his hand was wrapped around his own cock, and his voice was his constant companion whenever there was no one else to talk him out of stupid situations, Loki would talk him into them. All things considered, Tony had zero desire to actually go looking for Loki in return. The God would come to him when Tony's eyes slipped closed, real or not real it didn't matter because for the minutes he was dreaming everything felt real, dangerous in his dreams though dreaming was safer than meeting in the flesh, and the rush of it made up for the guilt he felt for cheating on Pepper night after night in his fantasies.

Tony baled on Thor, unwilling to actively seek Loki out. He found Loki purely by chance anyway that night. The God was curled over the bar, a drink in one hand and the other thrown over his head as if to ward off the world around him. He looked about as pathetic as Tony felt, and the engineer couldn't stop himself from sliding into the empty stool beside the God and murmuring, "Asgardian currency for your thoughts?"

The scowl he received in return did nothing more than make his chest ache. Usually it was accompanied by a clenching in his gut or a stirring in his groin, but his fight with Pepper earlier had effectively killed any attempt his body made at getting aroused. Instead, Tony laughed, ignoring the rushing of blood through his veins and the guilt that churned inside of him.

"You have one already but I believe I owe you a drink. What's your poison?" The barman was able to tell him when Loki failed to respond and Tony shoved the half full tumbler of whiskey across the bar towards the still glaring God. He took a sip of his own, testing the taste and the strength before knocking the rest back in one swallow. It was smooth and made his insides heat up for a few moments, but he revelled in it, his new addiction, something to replace the feeling of fingers drumming against an arc reactor that was no longer there when he was nervous or thinking.

Tony never called for the Avengers and Loki didn't attack anyone so when they had finished as much as they were willing to risk drinking in one another's presence that night they headed their separate ways without a fuss. The next night Tony found Loki in the same spot; curiosity having driven him to check, his brain wondering if the God would be waiting ready to attack him or waiting for a drink. The second was truer. Loki handed a glass of bourbon over silently and Tony drank it, eyes fixed on Loki's, unhesitant and calm. He didn't think to check if it was poisoned, because so what if it was? Maybe life would be better off over, everyone else would be better off without him, but he didn't contemplate that long because Loki spoke up, voice haughty and drawling, "I believe it is your round, Man of Iron."

"Not you too!" Tony whined, even as he flagged over a barman. He was sick of Thor convincing people that Man of Iron was better than Iron Man. "It's Tony. Stark if you must. What are you drinking?" Loki ordered and the barman delivered, and this time they drank while staring at one another, gazes burning holes in each other's faces and chests and thighs, eyes flicking up and down in turn, taking them all in.

Though it must have been quite obvious to them both what they wanted, neither acted upon their desires. They met the next night, and the next, and the next until one night Loki reached out to press his palm against Tony's cloth covered chest, over where the arc reactor used to be.

"I thought you didn't have a heart," Loki whispered, words only slightly slurred. They both knew he referred to his failed attempt at brain washing Tony, because as Clint had shared unhappily _he_ had had heart.

Tony shoved Loki's hand away. He unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it apart enough for Loki to see his chest, missing its iconic glow, covered in scars but no technology. Tony glanced down himself, reaching out for Loki's hand and bringing it back to his chest. Fingers pressed carefully against his flesh, cold enough to make him shiver, but Tony didn't jerk away. Instead he leaned forward slowly, pressing his mouth against Loki's so that the other could feel him talking and said, "I don't."

The next time their mouths met it was a real kiss, passionate and messy, and their hands tugged at hair and clothes and nails raked along exposed skin. Eventually they managed to find their way outside, bodies still tangled and lips still moving against the others. Tony doesn't remember how he got there, but he woke up in a room that wasn't his in an apartment that certainly wasn't his, and someone who wasn't Pepper was curled up in his arms. There was sex, he could remember that much, mind blowing, hot sex, and he might have passed out from the force of his orgasm because he can't remember pulling out or putting either of them under the blankets. His cock and balls are sticky from lube and ejaculate and the man in front of him – it's definitely a man – has his ass pushed back onto his morning wood, his crack slick as Tony rubs against him.

His back isn't aching, so at least he doesn't think he was on the bottom last night (that might take some explaining if Pepper noticed him wincing every time he sat down), and it's then that he remembers last night. Loki teleporting them to his own apartment; Loki lying spread out and naked on his bed, legs wide in invitation and green eyes blown with lust, begging Tony to lay with him; Loki's mouth falling open into a perfect o as Tony's cock filled him up; Loki screaming as he came and then the coiling in his gut that meant he was close too, coming, coming and then waking up. He'd blacked out. Loki had separated their bodies, tucked them both in but hadn't worried about cleaning up. Perhaps, Tony considered, he expected a repeat performance that morning? He considered it, but the two missed calls from Pepper on his phone that he noticed when he checked the time made him reconsider. So while Loki slept on, Tony dressed and snuck out of the apartment.

But he didn't tell SHIELD or the Avengers the address.

Two weeks later he turned up outside of Loki's door with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

"What are we celebrating?" Loki asked as he let Tony in, seemingly not upset at having been snuck out on and avoided for a fortnight.

"You and me," Tony told him, voice pitched low and eyelids at half-mast.

Loki shuddered, licking his lips at the thought. "You and me?" He repeated. "As in a relationship?" He had made no secret of his attraction, his constant flirting throughout their numerous drinking sessions impossible to ignore and when he had finally gotten Tony into his bed he had been more eager than the worst wench Loki could think of. He knew of course of Ms Potts, as everyone did, and he had understood Tony's unwillingness to dismiss someone so important from his life and had resolved himself to having Tony for that one night only. But now the man was back, for more and for him it seemed, and Ms Potts was the last thing on Loki's mind once their clothes were shed.

_XXX_

Life went on like that for three more months, and life was better but it still wasn't like before. Tony should have been happier. The Mandarin was gone, Killian was gone, Pepper had been successfully detoxed of the Extremis virus and Tony had successfully integrated his own body with it. He had two beautiful lovers and a successful company, he moonlighted as a fucking superhero and the day time flashbacks were less and less frequent. But Tony still dreamed of falling and of space and of fire that exploded and vaporised anything around it. He dreamt of Loki choking him, and Loki sucking his cock, and Loki on his hands and knees beneath him before standing and throwing Tony out of a window. He dreamt of Pepper crying, waking up screaming and begging her not to leave him. He should have been happier, but he wasn't.

Loki had fast realised that he wasn't the only lover in Tony's life, but he was content enough. He had easily been accepted into Tony's life, introduced as his personal assistant, long since needing to be replaced once Pepper had become CEO of Stark Industries. He still kept his apartment, but he spent most of his time in Tony's tower, those times when Pepper was away at meetings or overseas for business, and the Avengers on the lower floors left him alone because Tony had vouched for him, had threatened Nick Fury for him, because SHIELD owed him for the nuclear bomb thing.

Pepper on the other hand was heartbroken when she realised that Tony was cheating on her. Some women say it's ok if their boyfriend cheats with a man, that it hurts less, is less insulting, but having some people think that doesn't mean that it's completely true. Pepper felt like the bottom had fallen out of her world, her heart might have been ripped from her chest, it hurt so much she had to hold her hands there, pushing to keep the pain inside.

It felt like forever had gone by since Tony had confessed, but actually it had been only seconds. Pepper went to push him away, hands held out to keep Tony back and the engineer let her, allowing his hands to fall off of her shoulders where he had placed them just before he whispered, "Pep, I've been fucking Loki behind your back for nearly four months." He didn't apologise because he wasn't sorry, but he did add, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I think a part of me knew," Pepper admitted softly after another awkward silence had passed. "I should have guessed anyway," she laughed self-deprecatingly, "you spent all of your time together, in the lab, in the den, in your office. You never go in to your office! You used to avoid me when I was your PA." She sniffled, wiping at her nose with the back of one hand. "You even had bedrooms beside one another. Did you go in there to fuck him or did you fuck him in our bed?"

Tony didn't answer. The rooms in question were connected by an adjoining bathroom, and some mornings when Pepper slept in Tony would lock the bathroom door behind him and leave the shower running before going to wake Loki with an early morning fuck. Other times, if Pepper was up first Loki would sneak into the room and lie on her side of the bed, scowling at the warm imprint she had left behind, but most of the time Tony would fuck Loki in his own room before he went to bed, a hand over the God's mouth to keep him quite while Pepper showered and he'd wait a while until he was hard again and he'd join Pepper in bed, cock still wet from Loki but Tony would slide a condom over it and hope his girlfriend was too far gone to notice.

"It's ok," she whispered, rubbing the tears from her eyes. "I always knew you needed more than I could give you, but I was selfish. I should have let you go a long time ago." She grabbed her car keys and her purse off of the side table where she had left them earlier and made for the door. No matter how loud Tony shouted after her she didn't turn back around and he couldn't quite get his feet to follow her. Instead, he made his way into Loki's room and Loki's empty bed because Loki usually wasn't there if he knew Pepper would be home for longer than three days together.

But he lay there, surrounded by the scent of his God and he fell asleep with his phone beside his head, waiting for Pepper to call him. It was two days and seventy five rejected phone calls later than Tony realised Pepper might have been serious about leaving him.

He'd never had to win anyone back before. He'd never even thought about it before, and he had no idea what to do. So he did the only thing he could think of.

"Pepper broke up with me because I told her about us." Tony told Loki, standing in the doorway to his apartment, but refusing to come inside. "I can't do this with you anymore. We can stay friends if you want." He couldn't bear to look at the face Loki pulled, full of devastation and hurt, so he turned his back on the God and walked briskly back the way he had come. Once he was out of the apartment building, Tony fished his phone out of his pocket. Instead of ringing again, this time he sent a text.

It read: _I broke up with Loki for you. Please come home. Love you._

Writing those last two words made him feel sick. He had never said them to her since after the whole Mandarin thing, not once in almost a year, and he was sure he felt it because he had loved her before right? But the words wouldn't come out of his mouth and maybe Loki had been wrong, maybe the arc reactor hadn't blocked the way to his heart: maybe it _had been_ his heart and now it was gone. Without it he couldn't be happy and he wasn't capable of love and he hurt the people who cared for him.

Pepper didn't come back. Pepper didn't even reply to his text. She didn't block his number either though, so Tony left fifty three more voice mails over the next week. Loki's stuff went missing from his room at one point, the bits and pieces that had slowly made their way into Tony's own room without his notice had vanished as well, but a glass of bourbon (not poisoned) appeared every morning beside Tony's clock radio.

Loki had seen it coming, for who would be rid of someone as important as Ms Potts for someone like him? He was hurt but he wasn't angry and he still loved Tony enough to care. So he kept an eye on him, hiding invisible in the shadows of the room, watching over Tony as he slept and carefully waking him from any nightmares he had, gentle enough so that Tony would assume he woke on his own. It was on one such night that Loki appeared in the living room of what had been _their_ floor of the tower and found Tony slumped against the wall. His legs were half curled under him, one sticking out further than the other and making a sideways number 4.

"Anything, Jarvis?" Tony asked, his eyes firmly fixed on the amber liquid in his glass. The bottle was ready and waiting beside him, several others lying scatted around the room, empty.

"No new calls or messages, Sir. No word from either Ms Potts or Mr Laufeyson."

Tony sighed. It seemed to rattle his very bones and his shoulders hunched down, the man seeming to shrink in on himself at Jarvis' response. "I destroy everything I touch," he whispered to his drink.

"You and I appear to have that in common." Loki made himself visible as he spoke, allowing his body to slide down the wall until he was sat beside Tony, his legs straight out in front of him. He reached one pale hand out slowly, wary of Tony jerking away from his touch, but the man didn't move as long fingers curled around his own. They held hands in silence, Loki squeezing every time Tony took a drink and the more time that passed the less Loki could resist. Eventually he pulled Tony's head forward enough that he could place a kiss to the engineer's forehead, smiling against his skin and whispering, "I love you, Anthony."

Tony's mouth dropped open. He snapped it closed a moment later, and tried again but the words wouldn't come. Instead he settled for squeezing Loki's hand back and saying, "I wish I could-"

"I know," Loki replied softly.

Three hours passed and Loki had long since given up trying to convince Tony to go to bed or at the very least to stop drinking for the night. Jarvis had threatened to ring Pepper himself and tell on his creator but Tony had only wished him luck in getting Pepper to pick up. She did pick up, but Jarvis didn't tell Tony that. Instead he allowed it to be a surprise when three hours after Loki arrived, Pepper walked calmly out of the elevator, leaving her purse and her shoes aside as if she still lived there and made her way over to the two men still leaning against the wall. She curled her legs beneath her ass as she sat down on Tony's other side, back against the wall and shoulders tight together. She took Tony's free hand in both of her own and brought it up to her mouth to kiss.

"I love you," she whispered as Tony continued to stare at her in stunned silence. He squeezed her hands in response and she merely smiled at him, having grown used to his inability to repeat the words, though still not happy about it. Tony was broken, and it was her responsibility and Loki's now too she supposed to help Tony put all of the pieces back together. When they were done, she could berate Tony as much as she liked for lying to her and hurting her and not telling her he loved her, but for now he needed them, to be kind and understanding and unbroken, to love him like they knew he loved them (and he did love them, no matter what he thought, because his life wasn't worth living without them and it had taken losing both of them to realised how much they meant to him).

He held their hands in both of his, Loki on one side and Pepper on the other, and they leant their heads against his shoulders and he took turns pressing kisses into red hair and then black hair and then red again, over and over until he grew tired. He laid his head back against the wall, not wanting to pick one set of shoulders and seem like he was choosing sides.

Tony shouldn't need this, need both of them, but he was broken and greedy and they needed him just as much. He had hurt them and he had hurt himself, but sometimes selfish pain is worth it. To have this, he thought to himself just before he drifted off, it was worth it.

He slept, and it was dream free. There were no nightmares this time, no tears, no darting awake panting for air, because on either side of him his lovers watched over him, loved him and comforted him. Tony Stark had defeated the Mandarin, Killian and saved the world again. He still had his demons but he preferred to drown them at the bottom of a bottle; that was the Stark way. Pepper was back and Loki was back and maybe he should have been happier, but he was happy enough.

_XXX_

"_Don't speak as I try to leave, 'cause we both know what we choose. _

_If you pull, then I'll push too deep and I'll fall right back to you. _

_Cause you are the piece of me, I wish I didn't need_." - Zedd: Clarity.

**The End**

Thank you for reading. If you liked it let me know. If any of you want to think of an ending to my slave!Loki fiction please let me know, because I have no idea how to end it realistically. Flailing.


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